Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. IV NEGRITOS OF PERAK 95
It may still be a moot point whether the Semang
ever bury the corpse in a sitting position or not. For
although we are informed by Maxwell that the remains
(of those who die in an honourable way) are laid upon
a log of wood, in a sitting posture, and buried a foot
or two under the ground, we have no account of any
such custom at first hand from an eye-witness, and it
is hence always possible that a statement of the kind,
if not in the present instance, may yet sometimes
arise from the vagueness of a native trying to describe
the position of the corpse (with its legs drawn
up under it), such as actually occurs. More exact
information upon this point may therefore be awaited.^
Ascribed to the Semang is a yet more extra-
ordinary practice, the tradition of which, although
totally devoid of foundation at present, may possibly
have originated in some obsolete Semang custom.'
This is the idea, found among the Malays, that when
a Semang dies the body is eaten, and nothing but the
head interred.^
II.
—
Sakai.
There is no satisfactory description of a Sakai
burial, with the exception of one by Vaughan-Stevens,
whose accounts as a rule require much independent
corroboration.
made after the manner of the Malays, the Andamanese, who used to exhume
etc., or a bertam leaf is placed slanting the bones of relations after three
across it like the summer huts which months and clean and break them up
they make for themselves. to form necklaces, with the skull as
1 Maxwell, /. R. A. S., S. B., No. pendant.— Man's Jml p. 78.
I, p. 112. 3 Newbold, ii. 377-379. Since the
It should be pointed out that Max- above was set up (in the text), I have
well confuses the temis Sakai and met with evidence that seems to sub-
Semang, but that in other respects his stantiate my view.— Vide p. 228, infra.
account is accurate. The Jakun of Johor make a similar
'^ Especially likely does this seem charge against the Udai, whom they
when we remember the extraordinary " accuse of devouring their own dead."
customs of other Negrito races, e.g., Newbold, ii. 38 1, 382.